little feeding issue.

[bled63]

hi,
I am about to leave on a 5 day trip and was wondering if my mantis,
(around this size ___ give or take) would survive on pods infesting my rocks or as I like to call them sea fleas.

 

[Ratatooee]

I'm fairly new to keeping a mantis but intend to do the same thing I do with my lionfish when I go out of town at the end of July. Throw in some live food for him and he can feed himself =D. With my lion I put in a couple extra damsel fish for him to feed on while I am gone, with my mantis I intend to put in a couple extra snails. From what I have read the mantis is good about not over eating so if it has live food in the tank it should only eat when hungry. Hope this helps

 

[DanInSD]

Most stomatopods can survive for weeks without food. No problem.

Dan

 

[justinl]

+1 with Dan. for 5 days the mantis will be fine. if he does decide to hunt down some pods, then no problem, he is small enough to bother with them (bigger ones dont bother with such a small meal).

there's no real need to throw any live food in, but if you feel like it, you could throw in a few nassarius snails. i doubt it could handle anything bigger.

 

[bled63]

thanks guys.

I have not started to feed him snails or small crabs yet do to the fact that it is still to small. I am not even sure if it is a smasher or a spearer. (I am leaning towards spearer since he is making tons of U shaped burrows) so I feed him my famous mysid on a stick.